Primary Voting

It's the early voting period for the Texas primaries. I'm going to be voting in the Republican primary, which I'm not thrilled about for a couple of reasons. First off, it makes me an official member of the Republican party and I don't like that at all. Unfortunately, while there's parts of Texas where Democrats sometimes win elections, I don't live in one of them. So being an independent and just voting in November gives me a choice between the Republican and some guy who doesn't have a chance in hell of winning and couldn't do the job competently if he did but wanted a soapbox for his pet issue. If I want to have some useful influence the primary is my best shot.

The other problem is that voting in the primary forbids me from signing nominating petitions for independents. So Kinky would have to get on the ballot without my support. That would be enough to keep me out of the primary if I didn't want to support a challenger to a local incumbent. As it is, I may vote for Kinky in November but he'll have to get there without me. I've got one vote and it carries a lot more weight in a State Rep race than for Governor.

But as long as I'm there I need vote for all of the offices. Most have only one candidate, so that's easy. The judge races I'm skipping on the grounds that they don't provide useful info for making decisions. That leaves a handful. Here's my take on them:

Governor: Perry (incumbent) - OMG the other guys are scary.

Lt. Governor: Dewhurst (incumbent) - The other guy isn't scary but not up to a major job either.

Railroad Commissioner: Jones (incumbent) - See above.

District Clerk: Hinojosa - Can't find much info on him, but he's a staffer for the incumbent and now running against. So he's got some basic clue on the job. I'm voting for him because I'm tired of voting for incumbents.

State Representative, District 99: Hatley - I'm supporting Hatley on the private property rights issue mostly (i.e., eminent domain abuse). The incumbent (Geren) has been active in expanding the government's power to take private land, particularly in the case of the Trinity River Vision. Hatley's campaign literature attacks Geren for being "too liberal". That's not an indictment to me. OTOH, the specific items--legal driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and union pay scale for convict labor--are ones I'm opposed to where ever they land on the left-right spectrum. So I'm for Hatley.